Two new documentaries about the 2017 Fyre Festival came out on Netflix and Hulu this week, with a focus on how social media and influencers continue to be underestimated when it comes to driving sentiment and influence. From The Guardian, “In this scenario, the enjoyment of an experience is secondary to that of selling of it down the chain to one’s own followers, with the subsequent admiration and envy it’s hoped to cause.”

Facebook accounted a three-year commitment to invest $300 million in local news ecosystems. This follows the heels of Google’s similar $300 million “Google News Initiative” last year. Part of the initiative intends to place 1,000 new journalists in local newsrooms over five years.

Fortnite is emerging as the new primary social media gathering spot each day. If you haven’t yet played, you should! Check out this quote by Owen Williams: “Not only is Fortnite the new hangout spot, replacing the mall, Starbucks or just loitering in the city, it’s become the coveted ‘third place’ for millions of people around the world.”

Netflix’s ‘Bird Box’ un-marketing campaign was a smart use of timing (holiday break), promoting to a captive audience (recommended viewing to Netflix subscribers), and star power (Sandra Bullock). This is the same formula that helped Adam Sandler’s Netflix movies become so popular years ago. Bob Lefsetz called it “a sea change in the entertainment promotional complex.” But there’s a meme and internet culture story here. In fact, the Bird Box Challenge has become such a problem Netflix had to ask people not to hurt themselves. The memes themselves are creating more viewership, despite the fact the film isn’t even very good. But for Netflix, it isn’t about positive reviews, it’s about views. And they’re getting them.

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Fornite Dances Sparking Lawsuits: One of the most viral trends of 2018 is the popularity of dances from the popular game Fortnite. Including the Floss, Orange Justice, Electro L and Take the L. But some of the inspiration for these dances are now suing the video game developers for copying their dance moves. Specifically, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” host Alfonso Ribeiro says Epic Games copied “The Carlton Dance” he made famous on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and Ryan “Backpack Kid” Huggins is suing for the emote “Floss.” Check out the side by side comparisons here (and practice up to impress your nieces and nephews over the holidays!).

Instagram Testing Influencer Accounts: Recognizing the perhaps Business Profiles didn’t fit influencer social behavior, Instagram is testing “Creator Accounts” with special access to insights, direct message filters, custom contact information and categories. Assuming this test goes well, look for these features to roll out in Q1.

Same Sh*t, Different Year for Facebook: As we come into 2019, it looks like Facebook will continue to face an uphill battle in defending its poor data policies and transparency behind selling user information. A New York Times feature this week revealed the social network gave Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify and others far greater access to people’s data than it has disclosed. Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages. Even though advertisers aren’t pulling out anytime soon, it’s time for some New Year’s Resolutions, Facebook!

Snapchat’s Year in Review: Snap is making customized year-end videos for users with the Stories we’ve saved to Memories. Although Snapchat has had a rocky year, active users are loving to see their algorithmically-created years in review. To see yours, open Snapchat, navigate to the camera screen and then swipe up to Memories. Your video should be at the top of the page.

From Tide Pods to Gritty to U Want This Bunny to Stan Twitter to Not a Cellphone in Sight – it’s been a year in memes and social culture… Buzzfeed has a roundup called 46 Memes That Defined 2018 that has them all in one tweetable place.

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Voice Memos and Countdowns come to Instagram: This week Instagram launched voice messaging – bringing the emerging voice memo behavior to direct message groups. They also launched a Countdown Sticker option in the sticker menu. Just set date, time (or all-day), and your followers can subscribe to your countdown event, which will send out a reminder the countdown is complete. Bravo is already using Countdowns, promoting this weekend’s Vanderpump Rules episode.

Facebook Watch #’s Growing: This week Facebook announced that its video platform “Watch” has more than 400 million monthly users, with 75 million daily visitors who watch more than 20 minutes. It’s a small percentage given the number of active Facebook users, but demonstrates growth on the dedicated video platform worth noting. According to Axios, Facebook says that the criteria used to determine whether someone is a daily active visitor of its product is by measuring whether a user spends at least one minute on the “Watch” platform per day, but those 60 seconds do not need to be consecutive. Video consumption on Facebook is growing, albeit slowly.

Snapchat Testing Even More New Features: Snapchat is testing Portrait Mode, Batch Capture and charms, which are new ways to identify your friendship groups. Most of these are similar to features that already exist in Instagram, which is the exact opposite of how the two social networks have copied each other in recent years. The Next Web has details on the new Snap features here.

The American Meme: This week we binged Netflix’s The American Meme, featuring influencers like The Fat Jewish, Kirill, Brittany Furlan and Paris Hilton sharing their successes and struggles at building a personal brand through social media. It’s worth a watch, if only to see how Paris and The Fat Jewish scheme to create demand for fake products in the era of fake news. And while it’s not surprise that living your life online isn’t all bling and likes and champaign, the documentary does capture some darker moments and actually had us feeling the feelings for these manufactured personalities. LIKE.

Watch these wildlife officials struggle to stay alive as they release the world's most badass bobcat kitten back into the wild. The bobcat, who we're calling Mr. Murderbritches, was relocated after he was caught eating 🐔🐔🐔 in Kanarraville, UT.

Elf on the Shelf Burnout: Thanks to Pinterest parenting, the bar for Elf on a Shelf pranks and stage design has reached a feverish peak in social media this year (even when you accidentally leave him in the oven). The pressure to delight not only your kiddos but also your social followers is prompting some to look for an alternate tradition — rooted in the new social behavior of opting out. It’s called Santa’s Lazy Gnome, and for $34 your family can get a plush little old man and book explaining that the gnome doesn’t need to be moved because he can see children from anywhere. No social sharing required! Priceless!

Spotify Wrapped: An analysis of 12-months of streaming can say a lot about a person, and Spotify is again helping you crunch your streaming data to see how your stacked up this year, including total minutes streamed, top artists and songs, top genres and even custom playlists based on your listening habits. See your analysis at SpotifyWrapped.com and share your results with #2018Wrapped.

Here’s what else is worth a skim this week…

This week Apple unveiled its list of the most downloaded iPhone apps of 2018. Topping the list is YouTube, followed by Instagram, Snapchat, Messenger and Facebook, with Bitmjoi falling to sixth place (it was #1 in 2017!).

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When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution… Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress. – Paul Virillio

Virillio believed in this idea of the “integral accident” — that any technology is paired with the accidents it can create…

Virilio believed that technology cannot exist without the potential for accidents. For example, Virilio argued that the invention of the locomotive also contained the invention of derailment. He saw the Accident as a rather negative growth of social positivism and scientific progress. He believed the growth of technology, namely television, separates us directly from the events of real space and real time. In it he suggested we lose wisdom and sight of our immediate horizon and resort to the indirect horizon of our dissimulated environment. From this angle, the Accident can be mentally pictured as a sort of “fractal meteorite” whose impact is prepared in the propitious darkness, a landscape of events concealing future collisions. Aristotle claimed that “there is no science of the accident”, but Virilio disagreed, pointing to the growing credibility of simulators designed to escape the accident— which he argued is an industry that is born from the unholy marriage of post-WW2 science and the military-industrial complex.

Paul Virillio is new to me, but there’s a lot here to unpack I’m going to be diving into.